Effective May 24, 1973, Carl
Rochelle (who would later find national prominence as an anchor and reporter
for CNN) resigned as anchor of KMSP-TV Channel 9's Eyewitness News program
after two and a half years on the job. The reason?

“I am tired of being
number three in the market,” he bluntly told the Minneapolis Star . “I just don't want to continue in that
manner. I want opportunity for advancement.”

Rochelle's frank and
brutal comments weren't unfounded. In the ten p.m. news competition in the TwinCities
of Minneapolis and St. Paul , Channels 4 and 5, the CBS and NBC
affiliates respectively, averaged 250-275,000 households per night. ABC
affiliated Channel 9 was lucky to draw 70,000 households to its ten o'clock
news. Often the numbers were closer to 50,000 households. ABC was historically
the third-place network but they were growing; and they were relying more and
more on the success of their local stations to build on their own success as a
respected, competitive network. Channel 9 did frequently beat out the newscasts
on the other channels at six p.m., but that was because they were running Truth or Consequences instead of news
at that time.

Carl Rochelle came to the Twin Cities in 1971. By 1973, he decided KMSP was no longer "the place to be."

Over the years, a lot of big
names and big ideas came and went at Channel 9. Its very first newscaster in
1955 was none other than Harry Reasoner, later of 60 Minutes and ABC
News fame, when the station was a Du Mont network affiliate known as KEYD-TV.
Later on, Channel 9 anchors included KSTP veteran Bill Ingram, newspaper man
George Grim, radio talk host Bob Allard, and the two-man team of Bill Fahan and
Jim Steer among others. In 1969, struggling KMSP was the first Twin Cities
station to hire TV news consultant Al Primo to reformat its news programs from
a strict reading of news, weather and sports by three anchormen to a more
colorful, entertainment-orientated program with features, light stories and
banter between the anchors and reporters. Thus began Channel 9's Eyewitness
News. Primo's formula, used by virtually every television newscast in the
country to this day was revolutionary; but not revolutionary enough to entice
Twin Cities viewers away from their old habits.

Image courtesy Richard Sigurdson.

KMSP
personality Al Tighe served as interim anchor for Eyewitness News until a
replacement could be found. Behind the scenes, the station took the opportunity
to try and solve the problems they had in attracting viewers to its newscasts.
After months of extensive research on what attracts viewers to one particular
program over another, it was found that great personalities are the key. First
place WCCO-TV Channel 4 had long-time favorite Dave Moore at the helm. KSTP-TV
Channel 5 had in recent years installed a team of youthful, good-looking
anchors and reporters. Channel 9 screened over 200 audition tapes from around
the country in search of one great personality and wound up settling on two:
Ben Boyett and Phil Bremen.

The station invested in new equipment, designed
and built a new set and in October of 1973, Newsnine with Boyett and Bremen, billed as “the
Bright New News Guys on Nine,” was launched. With it came the biggest promotional
blitz in the station's history.

The Bright New News Guys on Nine

"This
is KMSP-TV Minneapolis-St. Paul, your Newsnine station,” a staff announcer
would intone before the start of every program, entertainment as well as news.
The word “newsnine” in lower-case letters appeared with every station
identification. The youthful, good-looking Boyett and Bremen appeared in promotional spots on the
station, newspaper ads, radio commercials and on billboards. Humor was used to
show what great personalities these bright new news guys were, including one
memorable spot parodying the opening sequence of the Mary Tyler Moore Show,
a comedy that happened to be about a (fictional) low-rated television news
operation in Minneapolis
. Boyett and Bremen
“just might make it after all,” singer Mary Macgregor belted out in the parody
tune as the guys tossed up their hats in the middle of Nicollet Mall just like
the sitcom star.

In addition to Boyett and
Bremen
reading the news, sportscaster Tony Parker, who had been with the station since
it went on the air in the fifties, remained as the one holdover from the old
news show, and former KSTP Radio disc jockey Ernie Martz was hired to forecast
the weather.

...and David Letterman with the weather?

Interestingly,
David Letterman almost became the bright new weather guy on Newsnine.

Letterman,
who worked as a weatherman in Indianapolis
in the mid-seventies, has mentioned in interviews with local media that he came
close to moving to the Twin Cities. He told the Minneapolis Star Tribune in
1997 that he was offered the job with Channel 9 and almost took it, even though
the pay was no better than what he was getting in Indianapolis . But on his way back to the
airport, "I saw these big fences down the median of the highway. I asked
the driver what they were, and he said it was for the snow. I decided then that
I'm not doing that. It just wasn't worth it to be that uncomfortable for the
same amount of money."

Barry ZeVan the "peek-a-boo weatherman" would have been his
competition over at Channel 5. Letterman had a somewhat different story when
ZeVan interviewed him years later." David said, "You know, you're
really responsible for where I am. I came up to audition to do the weather on
Channel 9, on KMSP…I watched you the first night and I didn''t want to compete
with you,'" ZeVan related to the Star Tribune in 1993.

However, Ben Boyett himself recalls the Letterman connection a bit differently.
In an email, he tells us, "There is one bit of correction I would like to
convey, merely because it makes a better story concerning the possibility of
David Letterman becoming the newsnine weather personality.

"What actually happened was this: Phil Bremen knew Letterman from their
working together on weekends in Indianapolis.
After we tried and failed to land a suitable weatherman, Phil called Dave and
convinced him to fly up to the Twin Cities on a Saturday afternoon to try-out
for the job. Dave flew in, auditioned (he was great!), interviewed with Don
Swartz and flew out all within a matter of about three hours. Therefore, there
was no overnight stay when he could have watched Barry Zevan. Even so, I doubt
that would have been too foreboding for Dave.

"But, the part that makes the story even better is a conversation Phil,
Dave and I had. Dave apparently came to town with his mind made up not to take
the job, just to placate Phil. Dave told us that he had saved-up the princely
sum of $5000 and planned to drive out to Los Angeles to see if he could make it
in the stand-up comedy business. I told him that if he did that, not only would
it be a waste of time, but a waste of a great opportunity. I predicted, 'you
might never do weather on television again.' And, sure enough, I was right. He
has not done television weather since."

'I saw you on TV
for VD'

Like other struggling ABC
affiliates at the time, Channel 9 relied on sensationalistic features to
attract viewers to its news shows, including a week-long series on the Devil
for the February sweeps in 1974 as “The Exorcist” was raking in millions at the
box office, and in time for the May sweeps, a week-long series on that dreaded
sexually-transmitted plague everyone talked about in the 1970s, venereal
disease--VD. The VD report was hyped a week in advance and ended up landing the
station in some hot water.

A promotional ad that ran
on the station during the week of the series featured footage young people out
and about in Minneapolis
on a nice spring day in 1974 as a voice-over warned, “Someone you love may have
VD.” The commercial seemed to imply that the young people shown had VD
themselves and two women who involuntarily appeared in the spot ended up suing
the station separately for hurting their reputations by associating them with
venereal disease.

One woman in her early
twenties who was shown in the ad innocently riding her bike sued for $200,000,
claiming the camera zoomed in and showed a “clearly recognizable” and “blatant”
closeup of her face, according to news reports from the time of the suit. The
suit alleged it conveyed the “clear, explicit, yet totally false implication”
that she had venereal disease or was associated with it in some way. The suit
further contended that the broadcast caused her to suffer “extreme humiliation
and embarrassment,” and asked for $100,000 for that “physical and emotional
anguish” and another $100,000 in punitive damages.

From 1974: "Catch VD tonight (!) on Newsnine Dateline." The on-air promotions for this series proved to be in even worse taste.

A second woman, who was a teenager walking with
her boyfriend when she was filmed by the Channel 9 crew (who alledgedly told
her the filming was for a "spring special," happened to be
introducing the boyfriend to her father when the footage of her and her
boyfriend and the VD message came on the TV. Moments later, an acquaintance
from school called and said “Ha, ha. I saw you on TV for VD.” In a complaint
filed in district court, the woman claimed that due to the station's “wanton
misconduct,” she was harassed in school to the point of having to change
schools and was forced to live in a foster home because her outraged and rather
unforgiving father threw her out of the house and refused to talk to her for
two years. The complaint alleged that she was “deprived of her father's love
and affection” in addition to having to hide from her friends. Her suit topped
the previous one, asking for $250,000.("City
woman, 25, suing KMSP for film of her in show on VD" by Gwenyth Jones,
Minneapolis Star, November 20, 1976; "Second woman sues TV station"
by Doug Stone, Minneapolis Tribune, March 17, 1977; "Girl shown in VD film
sues KMSP", Minneapolis Star, March23, 1977)

Mickey Mouse News

Image courtesy Richard Sigurdson.

In spite of “bright new news
guys,” intense promotion and titillating special reports, Channel 9 still found
it difficult to be an aggressive competitor in the nightly news race. While
they hired first-rate on-air talent, the actual news staff and budget was far
below what was maintained by Channels 4 and 5. The ownership was notorious for
its reluctance to spend money on the operation, with the seeming contention
that winning the race was simply a matter of style over substance. Minnesotans
as television viewers tended to be hard-wired to not break from old habits to
be sure, but the station also could not shake its reputation for having a cheap
product. Of those who did watch Channel 9, some were there just to see the
unintentionally entertaining flubs that were more frequent than they should
have been for a major market network affiliate.

Meanwhile over at KSTP-TV
Channel 5, they were making some of their own changes, not so much in response
to Channel 9, but to catch up with first-place Channel 4. They snatched up the
name recently discarded by Channel 9, Eyewitness News, and hired their own
bright new news guy, Ron Magers. KSTP and WCCO duked it out for viewers, with
KSTP eventually overtaking WCCO in the ratings battle. KMSP, in the meantime,
barely budged.

The Newsnine program was
fine-tuned with the addition of new features and better presentation.
Boyish-looking Phil Bremen grew a mustache for a more mature appearance and the
station continued to wave its arms, jump up and down and let people know, hey,
we're here. Ads for the news shows tried to claim that “lots of people” are
watching Newsnine, without any solid numbers, in an attempt to convince the
masses inclined to go with the crowd. Tell them it's so, and they'll think its
so and soon lots of people really will be watching, the theory went.

Finally, in the summer of
1975, after the May sweeps still found Channel 9 in the also-ran position at
ten p.m., Ben Boyett was let go. Phil Bremen remained as the sole anchor until
a replacement for him could be found. Upon dismissal, Boyett told all and
didn't hold back to Minneapolis Tribune reporter
Irv Letofsky. He charged that the station's low news budget and serious
deficiency in equipment made it impossible to compete. He claimed that the
station used cheap radio scanners “like the kind you can buy at the Radio Shack
for a hobby” and that competing with WCCO and KSTP was “like putting Ron Lyle
in the ring with Muhammed Ali.”

“They started us with a
comedy ad campaign as the best comedians in town,” Boyett told the Tribune. “They never said anything
about news.”

The indignant newsman
pointed to a promotion that consisted of a line drawing of him and Bremen for children to
color with crayons and send to the station for prizes of record albums, books
and games. Some of the best were posted in the newsroom. He pointed out that
reruns of the Mickey Mouse Club on
independent station WTCN-TV Channel 11 were drawing better ratings than the
five p.m. edition of Newsnine and that the attitude of people in the newsroom
was such that they'd run the audio of Mickey
Mouse along with the video of Channel 9 news on the newsroom
monitor as a joke. General manager Donald Swartz had no comment on Boyett's
charges.

After Bremen was dismissed in August, reporter and
weekend anchor Steve Doyle filled in as the interim anchor until a new anchor
could be found, with Doyle splitting the weekend anchor duties with fellow
reporter Julie Eckhert. Ben Boyett, after doing news in other cities and
starting his own music and video production company, eventually landed at
KNBN-TV in Rapid City, SD as an anchor and executive producer for
news. Phil Bremen went on to become an NBC News correspondent for eight years,
worked as the press secretary for Governor Frank O'Bannon of Indiana,
and today is a professor of telecommunications at BallStateUniversity
in Muncie, Indiana.

Keep On Watchin'…please?

Hoping
that new faces and an overall facelift would be the ticket to success for
Channel 9, Don Harrison was introduced to Newsnine viewers in September of 1975
bringing a warmer and more mature presence to the program. He was joined a few
months later by a woman co-anchor, the perky Cathie Mann. Rounding out the
anchor team, sportscaster George McKenzie and Dave McLaughlin, who was not just
a weatherman, but a meteorologist. A
jazzed-up rendition of “Classical Gas” by Mason Williams was used as the
opening theme.

The early-evening
newscast was moved from five to six p.m., taking it out of competition with the
Mickey Mouse Club but putting
it up against the well-established news programs on Channels 4 and 5. The
station continued to push the Newsnine brand in almost every promotion and
introduced a new slogan, “Keep On Watchin',” playing on the popular seventies
catch phrase “keep on truckin'.”

Former sportscaster and
personality Tony Parker, who literally signed the station on the air in 1955
and worked with its original anchor Harry Reasoner, resigned after 20 years of
service, while announcer-weatherman Ernie Martz stayed on as a staff announcer.

But with all the changes
and supposed improvements, “the ingredients remain the same, which means that
the local news reporting is still abysmal,” said Bob Lundegaard of the Minneapolis Tribune.

The flubs didn't go away
either. In reference to the March 31, 1976 Newsnine broadcast, Lundegaard
reported, “Thursday's show was one of those nights that every newsman dreads.
The wrong film was shown in one segment, juxtaposing a legislative committee
meeting with a story about racial problems at a suburban school. Then Ms. Mann
fluffed two straight stories. Finally, Harrison
's teaser lines before a commercial were drowned out by music.”

In 1976, Don Harrison and Cathie
Mann were "part of the puzzle" for KMSP, along with ABC's Harry Reasoner
(ironically Channel 9's first local anchor in 1955) and Barbara
Walters, meterorologist Dave McLaughlin and sportscaster George
MacKenzie.

The
Tribune reporter went on to
quote KMSP general manager Donald Swartz saying, “I'm not looking for
miracles…We want to be respectable. The demand to be number one ruins the news
business. If you're looking to make money, you can do it with a good number
three. At this stage, number one isn't that important. Audience acceptance is.”

Still The One!

In the mid-1970s, the alliance between number one network ABC and KMSP-TV seemed on the surface to be as strong as ever. But there was trouble behind the scenes.

By the 1976-77 television season, traditionally
third-place ABC was red hot. It was the home of the Fonz on Happy Days, who had toppled Archie
Bunker as America
's favorite sitcom character. It was also the home of Kotter, Charlie's Angels,
Donny and Marie Osmond, Starsky and Hutch, Barney Miller, Monday Night Football and the Fonz's
favorite chicks, Laverne and Shirley.

Their news operation was
plagued with the same kinds of problems and public perception as KMSP's was
locally but ABC was changing that with the hiring of ABC Sports genius Roone
Arledge to head up the news division and the luring of Barbara Walters away
from NBC with a multi-million dollar contract.

In
1977, as the new number one network in prime time, ABC introduced a new theme, Still The One, with a well-remembered
commercial that featured clips from old ABC shows, followed by energetic
Americans of all stripes making the “number 1” gesture with their index finger
while a catchy rendition of the classic Orleans hit played.

We're Still the OneYou can turn to with cheerStill the OneAnd we'll always be hereYou're still having funCause we're Still the One!

With
the newfound prestige, ABC began to strengthen its affiliate lineup by
successfully getting CBS and NBC affiliates to switch to ABC in markets where
the network only had a low-power UHF station or no affiliate at all. They also
began to take a long, hard look at stations that remained in last place in the
market in spite of the network's success – like the one in Minneapolis.

While local news shows
usually benefit tremendously from a strong prime-time lead-in, the numbers were
showing that while KMSP was enjoying its strongest ratings in its history
thanks to ABC's programming, a stunning two-thirds to three-quarters of its
audience disappeared as ten o'clock rolled around, with much of the audience
going to KSTP-TV. Channel 5's Eyewitness News was number one at ten, in spite
of poor prime-time ratings from third-place NBC. Channel 9's news, meanwhile,
was often coming in fourth, behind Mary
Tyler Moore reruns on WTCN-TV Channel 11. ABC was getting impatient
with its situation in the Twin Cities and so were Stanley E. and Stanley S.
Hubbard of the KSTP empire.

In December 1977 it was
reported that an ABC official warned Donald Swartz that the
network was shopping his competitors for a new affiliate, and that he'd better
do something about his situation. Independent WTCN, which had been the ABC
affiliate until KMSP snatched it away from them in 1961, was considered a
possible contender ("Channel 9 news reportedly in trouble with ABC"
by David Eden, Minneapolis Star, December 28, 1977) but it seemed highly
unlikely that WCCO or KSTP would drop networks they had been wedded to since
the Golden Age of Radio. And even WTCN was one of the most successful
independent operations in the country, as part of the Metromedia chain of
mostly non-network stations.

Still, Swartz took the
warning serious enough to agree to budget a little more money into the news
operation. In the spring of 1978, the programs got a makeover with a new look
and a new name, Newswatch. Don Harrison remained as the lead anchor, and the
station introduced a new sports guy, Dave Sheehan, an entertainingly cocky,
smart aleck sports commentator familiar to Twin Citians as host of the infamous
Jock Talk on WWTC Radio in
the early seventies. He was nicknamed “the Mouth,” and he would refer to sports
fans as “athletic supporters,” among other things. Channel 9 continued to ride
the coattails of the first-place network by incorporating the ABC logo into its
own logo and having announcers and news reporters use the tag “ABC-9.”

The
new look was to debut on the night of ABC's telecast of the Academy Awards with
the hopes of bringing in a large lead-in audience. But the awards ceremony
ended up going way overtime
and the premiere of Newswatch with Don Harrison and introducing Dave Sheehan
didn't happen until well after midnight. Most of the potential audience had
long since gone to bed.

Meanwhile,
problems continued to mount in the newsroom with abrupt resignations and
complaints of a shoestring budget and stifling edicts from management. News
director Miles Resnick, who tried to bring enthusiasm and a new optimism to the
operation only to be hampered in his efforts, resigned after a little over a
year. He was replaced by George Noory, who stayed less than a year.

John Carman of the Minneapolis
Star cited several examples of the station's “embarrassing news
failures” and “penny-pinching attitude toward news.” It was the only local
network affiliate that didn't send a news crew to Cuba
with a Minnesota trade delegation, or to Washington when the late Senator Hubert Humphrey's body was
lying in state, or to Florida
when Mrs. Muriel Humphrey accepted appointment to her husband's Senate seat. It
did send a reporter to California to cover a
tour by Minnesota
power-line protesters, but only because the developers of the controversial
power line picked up the tab, raising major ethical questions.

The station neglected to
cover the arrival of state troopers to an earlier power-line protest in Pope County, Minnesota,
relying instead on an ABC crew there to cover it. The ABC crew ended up taking
their film to Chicago,
however, because a KMSP film processor was malfunctioning.

The copy writers
seemed to be struggling to find a dynamic way to describe Channel 9 news in
this 1978 ad.

Meteorologist
Dave McLaughlin left for WTNH-TV in New
Haven, Connecticut in
June 1978. Echoing what Carl Rochelle had said five years earlier, he told the Minneapolis Star, “Quite frankly, I'm
looking to get with a station that's in the
news-ratings battle,” New Haven
was a smaller market but the station there offered him a fifty percent pay
increase over Channel 9 and a profit-sharing plan.

The
station saw a potential advantage in the departure of McLaughlin. Barry ZeVan,
the popular weatherman at Channel 5 who had left a few years back for greener
pastures elsewhere, wanted to return to the Twin Cities. He was negotiating
with Channel 9, which was about to offer him more money than they were paying
anchorman Don Harrison. But then the other shoe fell.

Operation Big Switch

KSTP-TV
ad from early 1979 announcing that ABC was moving the top-rated Happy Days (and the rest of the network's
programming) to Channel 5.

On August
29, 1978, just before the start of the new fall season, it was announced that
KSTP-TV Channel 5 would become an ABC affiliate the following March, ending the
network's eighteen-year relationship with KMSP as well as KSTP's 50-year
association in radio and television with the National Broadcasting Company.

“We want to go into the 1980s in a leadership position with a network which we
think has the management, team and depth to be the best. That's ABC. We're just
absolutely thrilled,” Stanley S. Hubbard of KSTP gushed to the St. Paul Pioneer Press.

It was ABC's biggest coup
and the announcement was big news in the industry, written about in Newsweek, TV Guide, Business Week, even
the Washington Post and Los Angeles Times, along with the trade
publications. KMSP manager Donald Swartz, for his part, claimed to be
blindsided.

"I had no idea it was coming,” he told the St. Paul Pioneer Press. “The network told me
about eight months ago it was interested in getting other stations, but that's
all I knew about it.” As it turned out, the network made an offer to KSTP as
early as the spring of 1977 and had also been in contact with WTCN and WCCO.

KMSP held out hope they would get NBC and with it the Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson to
follow the ten o'clock news, if not the best prime time lineup. But NBC, eager
to show the industry that they didn't need a mere ABC reject, struck a deal to
affiliate with WTCN-TV Channel 11. Dumped by ABC and snubbed by NBC, Channel 9
would become the new independent station in town. As an independent, there
would no longer be the need to invest so much money in a competitive news
operation. No more nagging from the network. Consequently, the deal to bring
Barry ZeVan back to the Twin Cities was off.

While the
switch wouldn't take place for another six months, the station wasted no time
in severing ties. The ABC logo was blotted out in at least one on-air promo,
leaving an obvious blank circle next to the number nine. Announcers and
reporters stopped saying “ABC-9” and beginning in January 1979, ABC's Wednesday
night family show Eight Is Enough was
dropped (only to be promptly picked up by the still NBC-affiliated Channel 5)
as well as ABC's late-night programming of movies and prime time reruns (which
Channel 5 wasn't willing to drop Johnny
Carson in favor of any sooner than it had to). Adding to viewer
confusion, Channel 9 filled the post-ten p.m. void with the CBS Late Movie, which
wasn't being carried by WCCO. The station also started blacking out the
network's prime time news briefs for local news updates. Essentially, it was
Channel 9's way of “giving the finger” to the network it wasn't good enough
for.

With KMSP's pending status
as an independent station and the downsizing of the news operation, staffers
began turning in their resignations. Anchorman Don Harrison, who stayed with
the station through thick and thin, departed for Florida . A few years later he turned up on
the fledgling CNN Headline News as one of the more popular and recognizable
anchors, even reappearing on Channel 9 when they carried Headline News in the
morning. Sadly, after a long bout with cancer, Don Harrison died in 1998 at the
age of 61.

Co-anchor Cicely Hand,
who had just started with the station a few months earlier, left Channel 9
along with the network, saying she “didn't want to be part of an independent
team.” Steve Doyle stuck around for a while longer, until he was offered a job
hosting the local edition of PM Magazine on
WCCO-TV beginning in the fall of 1979. While anchors, reporters, producers and
photographers left en masse, sportscaster
Dave Sheehan stayed on board. As an independent station there would be expanded
sports coverage and Sheehan looked forward to the challenge.

On
its final night as an ABC affiliate, Channel 9 pre-empted the network's prime
time programming after the Osmond Family
Hour to showcase its new weeknight line-up, consisting of Gunsmoke reruns, the Dinah Shore Show, a new 9:30 news
program called Prime Time News and reruns of Maude
at ten p.m. It ran the ABC News Weekend Report with Tom Jarriel at
1 a.m. on March 5, 1979, just before sign-off. A few hours later, Good Morning America appeared on
Channel 5 while Channel 9 filled the void with Jonny Quest and other cartoons.

We're Receptive

"As
of March 5, Channel 9 takes orders from nobody – except our viewers,” an ad
declared. "No more edicts from New
York on what programs you have to watch. No more
network moguls deciding your taste. From now on, Channel 9 is your station." KMSP became
"Receptive Channel 9," a station for the people, by the people.
Viewers were encouraged to comment and make suggestions on the programming. In
station identifications the number nine was topped with cartoon antennas and a
little cord behind it.

As an independent, the schedule was heavy with reruns, movies and first-run
syndicated programming, a formula that had proven highly successful for former
independent station WTCN-TV Channel 11 and similar stations around the country.

KMSP happily bowed out of the cut-throat six-and-ten news
competition with a game show at six, an old sitcom at ten and Prime Time News
at 9:30 with new anchorman Tony Burden, along with Ernie Martz, the weatherman
from the Boyett & Bremen days resuming his old job and sportscaster Dave
Sheehan as one of the few holdovers from the old news show. Burden also hosted
a live daytime news-talk show with Bev Stoddard called Noon On Nine.

The station acquired
broadcast rights to high school basketball, Minnesota North Stars Hockey and
Minnesota Twins Baseball. While a number of industry “experts” made
dire predictions about the fate of Channel 9, suggesting that it would be sold
off at a fire sale price or simply go dark, the combination of sports, movies
and old favorites such as Gunsmoke helped
the station rebound surprisingly well in its post-network era. While KSTP
benefited immediately with ABC, it was WTCN that sank like a stone, bogged down
by a poorly managed, third-place NBC.

Eventually, KMSP renewed its commitment to news. In 1981, Prime Time News was
expanded to an hour, from 9-10 p.m., with national Independent Network News in
the first half and local news in the second. The staff and budget was
increased, and by the end of the decade, the news program gained viewers,
respectability and awards. Over time, as Tony Burden and Dave Sheehan moved on,
anchors included Rod Grams, who would later become a US congressman and Senator, Beth
Ruyak, Gary Rebstock, Heather Harden, Lori Aoki, Robyne Robinson and Jeff
Passolt.

Happy
Days
eventually moved back to Channel 9, in reruns.

As it
turned out, ABC inadvertently did them a favor. Channel 9 became far more
successful as an independent station than it ever was as a network affiliate. It
was seen on cable systems in other states, thus expanding its audience
reach in a way that it couldn't as a network affiliate, and it programmed
the kind of shows people want to see, many of which rivaled network programming
on the other channels. It would eventually hold the distinction of being the
number one independent station in the country. KMSP affiliated briefly with the
fledgling Fox Television Network in 1986, but parted company with the network
two years later in a dispute over programming preemptions. Fox switched to
KITN-TV Channel 29 and KMSP successfully resumed status as an independent in
the fall of 1988, of which it remained until 1995 when it became an affiliate
of UPN, the United Paramount Network.

The affiliation switched
back to Fox when the company purchased KMSP (as well as Channel
29) in 2002. Ironically, the previous ownership, United Television, Inc.,
was once a subsidiary of the old 20th Century-Fox Film Corporation, before
Rupert Murdoch built it into a media empire. With Fox's deep pockets for a
top-notch news operation along with popular programming such as the Simpsons and American Idol, in the ultimate revenge,
Fox 9 News at 9 with Robyne Robinson and Jeff Passolt often drew better ratings
than the news programs on the still ABC affiliated KSTP-TV. Robyne Robinson has
moved on, but Fox 9 News continues to be highly successful.

For rare video of KMSP
news in the 1970s and 1980s, go to TCMediaNow.com